ASTRONOMY
A
KEY CONCEPTS
■ Few if any astronomers
expected the sheer diver-
sity of planets beyond
our solar system. The most
extreme systems are
those that orbit neutron
stars, white dwarfs and
brown dwarfs.
■ Neutron stars are born in
supernova explosions, and
planets orbiting them prob-
ably congealed from the
debris. The bodies orbiting
white dwarfs are the hardy
survivors of the demise of
a sunlike star. And brown
dwarfs, themselves barely
more massive than planets,
nonetheless appear to be
sites of planet formation.
—The Editors
38 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
mong the most poignant sights in the
heavens are white dwarfs. Although
they have a mass comparable to our
sun’s, they are among the dimmest of all stars
and becoming ever dimmer; they do not follow
the usual pattern relating stellar mass to bright-
ness. Astronomers think white dwarfs must not
be stars so much as the corpses of stars. Each
white dwarf was once much like our sun and
shone with the same brilliance. But then it began
to run out of fuel and entered its stormy death
throes, swelling to 100 times its previous size
and brightening 10,000-fold, before shedding its
outer layers and shriveling to a glowing cinder
the size of Earth. For the rest of eternity, it will
sit inertly, slowly fading to blackness.
As if this story were not gloomy enough, it
gets worse. We and our colleagues have found
more than a dozen white dwarfs in our galaxy
that are orbited by asteroids, comets and perhaps
even planets— entire graveyards of worlds. While
the stars were still alive, they rose every day in the
skies of these worlds. They gently warmed the
soil and stirred the wind. Living organisms may
have soaked up their rays. But when the stars
died, they vaporized or engulfed and incinerated
their inner planets, leaving only the bodies that
resided in the chilly outposts. Over time the
dwarfs shredded and consumed many of the sur-
vivors as well. These decimated systems offer a
grim look at the fate of our own solar system
when the sun dies five billion years from now.
Astronomers have always suspected that plan-
ets might orbit stars other than our sun. We
imagined, though, that we would fi nd systems
much like our own solar system, centered on a
star much like the sun. Yet when a flood of dis-
coveries began 15 years ago, it was apparent right
away that extrasolar planetary systems can dif-
fer dramatically from our solar system. The first
example was the sunlike star 51 Pegasi, found to
have a planet more massive than Jupiter on an or-
bit smaller than that of Mercury. As instruments
became more sensitive, they found ever stranger
RON MILLER
instances. The sunlike star HD 40307 hosts three
planets with masses between four and 10 Earth
June 2009
 IMPROBABLE
PLANETS
Astronomers are finding planets where
there were not supposed to be any
masses, all on orbits less than half the size of
Mercury’s. The sunlike star 55 Cancri A has no
fewer than five planets, with masses ranging
from 10 and 1,000 Earth masses and orbital ra-
dii ranging from one tenth that of Mercury to
about that of Jupiter. Planetary systems imagined
in science fiction scarcely compare.
The white dwarf systems demonstrate that
the stars do not even need to be sunlike. Planets
and planetary building blocks can orbit bodies
that are themselves no larger than planets. The
variety of these systems equals that of systems
around ordinary stars. Astronomers hardly ex-
pected the ubiquity of planetary systems, their
hardiness and the apparent universality of the
processes by which they form. Solar systems
like our own might not be the most common
sites for planets, or even life, in the universe.
Phoenix from the Ashes
It is sometimes forgotten today, but the first con-
fi rmed discovery of any extrasolar planets was
around a very unsunlike star: the neutron star
w w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m
By Michael W. Werner
and Michael A. Jura
PSR 1257+12, an even more extreme type of S BROWN DWARF is a star so
stellar corpse than a white dwarf. It packs a mass small— some are hardly more
greater than the sun’s into the size of a small massive than a large planet—
asteroid, some 20 kilometers across. The event that it never lit up. Astronomers
scarcely even bothered to look
that created this beast, the supernova explosion
for planets around such runts.
of a star 20 times the mass of the sun, was more
Yet they have now seen hints
violent than the demise of a sunlike star, and it of mini solar systems forming
is hard to imagine planets surviving it. More- around brown dwarfs and
over, the star that exploded probably had a radi- similarly unlikely objects.
us larger than 1 AU (astronomical unit, the
Earth-sun distance), which is larger than the
orbits of the planets we see today. For both rea-
sons, those planets must have risen up out of the
ashes of the explosion.
Although supernovae typically eject most of
their debris into interstellar space, a small
amount remains gravitationally bound and falls
back to form a swirling disk around the stellar
remnant. Disks are the birthing grounds of plan-
ets. Astronomers think our solar system took
shape when an amorphous interstellar cloud of
dust and gas collapsed under its own weight.
The conservation of angular momentum, or
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 39

[THE AUTHORS] spin, kept some of the material from simply fall-
Michael W. Werner is project
scientist for NASA’s Spitzer Space
ing all the way to the newborn sun; instead it set-
tled into a pancake shape. Within this disk, dust
Telescope and chief scientist for
astronomy and physics at the
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
and gas coagulated into planets [see “The Gen-
esis of Planets,” by Douglas N. C. Lin; Scien-
tific American, May 2008]. Much the same
He has been an active researcher
in infrared astronomy for more
process could have occurred in the postsuper-
than 35 years, studying star for- nova fallback disk.
mation, the interstellar medium Astronomers discovered the system around
and the central regions of our PSR 1257+12 by detecting periodic deviations
galaxy. Next to Spitzer, Werner’s in the timing of the radio pulses it gives off;
favorite pastime is drawing.
Michael A. Jura is professor of
such deviations arise because the orbiting plan-
astronomy at the University of ets pull slightly on the star, periodically shift-
California, Los Angeles. He has ing its position and thus altering the distance
worked on the astrophysics of the pulses must travel. Despite intensive search-
cold, low-density environments es of other stars’ pulses, observers know of no
and on extrasolar planetary sys-
tems. Jura traces his interest in
other comparable system. Another pulsar, PSR
B1620–26, has at least one planet, but it orbits
exoplanets to the science fiction
he read as a child. so far from the star that astronomers think it did
not form in a fallback disk but rather was cap-
tured gravitationally from another star.
In 2006, however, NASA’s Spitzer Space Tele-
scope discovered unexpected infrared emission
from the neutron star 4U 0142+61. The infrared
light might arise from the star’s magnetosphere
or from a circumstellar disk. This star formed
in a supernova explosion about 100,000 years
ago, and it typically takes about a million years
or so for planets to agglomerate, so if the radia-
tion does signal the presence of a disk, this sys-
tem may one day resemble that revolving around
PSR 1257+12.
Many white dwarfs also have disks, albeit of
a somewhat different type: disks that indicate
the actual presence of orbiting bodies rather
than merely the potential to form them. As with
4U 0142+61, the clue is the unexpected emission
[WHAT ASTRONOMERS LOOK FOR]
Glowing in the Dark
A stronomers generally detect planets indirectly, by virtue
of their effects on the velocity, position or brightness
of their host stars. For most of the cases discussed in the
article, astronomers focus on one type of indirect sign:
the presence of a disk of dust orbiting the star. A so-called
protoplanetary disk occurs around newly born stars and is
thought to be the site of planet formation. A so-called debris
disk occurs around mature stars and is thought to arise from
collisions or evaporation of comets and asteroids, thus
signaling the likely presence of planets now or in the past.
Observers identify both types of disk from how they
absorb starlight and reradiate the absorbed energy at infra-
red wavelengths (right). NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope,
launched in 2003, has proved to be a veritable disk discovery
machine. Its large field-of-view infrared cameras can cap-
ture hundreds of stars in a single image and pinpoint those
with evidence of disks for further study.
Spitzer builds on the successes of past infrared telescopes,
such as the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) mission in
the 1980s and the European Space Agency’s Infrared Space
Observatory (ISO) in the mid-1990s. Unlike IRAS, which was
an all-sky survey, Spitzer points at specific celestial bodies for
intensive study, and the five-year-plus lifetime of its liquid-
helium coolant far exceeds that of any previous mission. The
telescope has studied everything from extrasolar planets to
galaxies in the early universe.
The coolant is now running out, and the telescope will
soon start to warm from nearly absolute zero to 30 kelvins.
Even so, it will be able to operate at the short-wavelength
end of the infrared band through at least the middle of 2011.
Taking up the slack will be the newly launched Herschel
Space Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST), planned for launch in 2013. — M.W.W. and M.A.J.
of infrared light. The fi rst hint dates to 1987,
when one of NASA’s ground-based observato-
ries, the Infrared Telescope Facility on the sum-

NASA/JPL-CALTECH (Werner); COURTESY OF MICHAEL A. JURA (Jura); MELISSA THOMAS (graph)

mit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, found excess in-
ORDINARY STARS,
frared light from the white dwarf G29–38. The
which lie on the
spectrum of this excess was that of a body with
so-called main
sequence relating 104 a temperature of 1,200 kelvins, much cooler
Supergiants than the surface of the star, which is 12,000
Brightness (relative to sun)

temperature and 103 (neutron star precursor)

brightness, struck kelvins.
102
astronomers as Initially astronomers thought that the dwarf
10 Sun
the most natural must be orbited by a second, cooler star. But in
places to find ana- 1 1990 they showed that the infrared emission
Main sequence
logues of our solar 10 ~1 varied in unison with the star’s own brightness,
system. But sys- 10 ~2 indicating that it was reflected or reprocessed
tems are also turn- White dwarfs starlight. The most plausible explanation is a
10 ~3
ing up around ob-
Brown dwarfs circumstellar disk heated by the star.
jects that lie off 10 ~4
This star has another peculiar property. Its
this sequence,
such as white and 30,000 10,000 7,500 6,000 5,000 3,500 outermost layers contain heavy elements such as
brown dwarfs. Effective Temperature (kelvins) calcium and iron, which is odd because the grav-
itational field near the surface of a white dwarf

40 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN June 2009

 Infrared Light Reveals Disks and Thus Planets or Their Building Blocks
A circumstellar disk of dust and gas, like the one that gave rise to the planets of our solar system, absorbs
starlight and emits infrared radiation. We observe a composite of direct starlight and disk emission.

Starlight

Circumstellar disk

Light from disk

Star

Brown dwarf plus disk

Brown dwarf
Disk

Brightness (arbitrary units)

An example is the brown dwarf OTS 44,
whose spectrum (orange line) initially
falls off at infrared wavelengths but
then flattens — indicating that the dwarf,
whose spectrum would be expected to peak at
short wavelengths (yellow), is surrounded by
cooler material whose spectrum peaks
at longer wavelengths (red).

Even when the system is

too far away for telescopes
to resolve spatially, the spectrum 1 3 10 30
reveals the blending of light. Wavelength (microns)

is so strong that those elements should sink into space [see box on page 43]. Moreover, although
RUSS UNDERWOOD Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Spitzer telescope); MELISSA THOMAS (illustrations)

the interior. In 2003 one of us (Jura) proposed a
simple explanation for both the infrared excess
and the presence of heavy elements: the white
dwarf recently shredded an asteroid that strayed
into its intense gravitational field. A cascade of
collisions reduced the debris to an orbiting dust
disk, which dribbled onto the star.
Asteroids for Dessert
Observations have since confi rmed this scenar-
io. Astronomers using both ground-based tele-
scopes and the Spitzer telescope have identified
some 15 white dwarfs with similar infrared
excesses and elemental anomalies. For G29–38
and seven other stars, Spitzer has gone further
and identified infrared emission from silicates
in the disks. These silicates resemble those in
dust particles in our solar system and appear
quite different from those in dust in interstellar
the stars’ outer layers contain heavy elements,
they do not contain those elements in equal
amounts. They are deficient in volatile elements
such as carbon and sodium compared with ele-
ments that tend to remain in solid form, such as
silicon, iron and magnesium. This elemental
pattern matches that of the asteroids and rocky
planets of the solar system. Both these facts sup-
port the contention that the disks are ground-up
asteroids.
The disks around white dwarfs are much
smaller than the disks that give rise to planets
around newborn sunlike stars. Judging from
their infrared emission, they extend to only
SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE,
about 0.01 AU and have a mass as low as that of
shown here under con-
struction, is the infrared an asteroid 30 kilometers in diameter— a fact
counterpart to the Hubble consistent with their possible origin in the disin-
Space Telescope. tegration of such an object. They are not poten-
tial sites of the formation of new planets but

w w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 41
 rather indicators that some planetary material
survived the demise of the star. Theoretical cal-
culations suggest that asteroids and Earth-like
planets can escape destruction if they orbit far-
ther than 1 AU. When our sun dies, Mars should
make it, but Earth may or may not.
To study how parts of a planetary system
might endure, two years ago Spitzer observed
the white dwarf WD 2226–210. This dwarf is so
young that the outer layers of the original sun-
like star remain visible as the Helix nebula, one
of the best-known planetary nebulae [see “The
Extraordinary Deaths of Ordinary Stars,” by
Bruce Balick and Adam Frank; Scientific
American, July 2004].
Consequently, WD 2226–210 provides the
missing link between sunlike stars and older
white dwarfs such as G29–38. Around it is a
dusty disk at a distance of 100 AU, comparable
to the scale of our solar system. That is much far-
ther than disks around other white dwarfs ex-
tend— too far, in fact, to consist of asteroids torn
up by the dwarf’s gravity. This disk must instead
consist of dust released as asteroids and comets
collide. Similar debris disks exist around the sun
and sunlike stars [see “The Hidden Members of
Planetary Systems,” by David R. Ardila; Scien-
tific American, April 2004].
This discovery confi rms that when a sunlike
star dies, distant asteroids and comets can sur-
vive. And if asteroids and comets can survive,
planets (which are, if anything, more durable)
should be able to survive as well. As WD
2262–210 cools, it will give off less light to illu-
minate the dust, and the distant belt of asteroids
and comets will fade into invisibility. But occa-
sionally one of its members may wander close
enough to the white dwarf to be shredded.

[EXTREME PLANETS #1]

Neutron Star
Systems
Neutron stars are probably the strangest and least
expected hosts of planetary systems. The neutron
star 4U 0142+61, remnant of a star that exploded as
a supernova 100,000 years ago, is swaddled in a disk
of stellar debris (artist’s impression at right). The
debris may be clumping into planetary building
blocks (gray chunks).

NEUTRON STAR + DISK

System name: 4U 0142+61
System age: 100,000 years
Star radius: 10 kilometers
Disk radius: 1 astronomical unit (AU)

Another neutron star, PSR 1257+12, has bona fide planets. Its pulses of Even Pulse Spacing (no planets)
radio emission oscillate slightly in their arrival times (right), indicating
that the star is being yanked around by three orbiting worlds (below).

NEUTRON STAR + PLANETS

System name: PSR 1257+12 Varying Pulse Spacing (planets)
System age: 800 million years
Star radius: 10 km
Planet orbital radii: 0.19, 0.36, 0.46 AU Pulse delayed Pulse advanced
Planet masses: 0.02, 4.3, 3.9 Earth masses

Epoch (year)

42 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN June 2009

 [EXTREME PLANETS #2]
White Dwarf Systems
Many a white dwarf is hugged by a tiny disk of material,
probably the remains of an asteroid (artist’s impression at
right). In some of these disks, astronomers have seen the
spectral signature of silicate. The spectrum matches that
of planetary silicate (green curve in graph below) — in
essence, stone — as opposed to interstellar silicate (red
curve). This and other evidence suggest that orbiting
bodies, possibly including planets as well, survived the
tumultuous creation of the dwarf and still trundle through
the unseen outskirts of the system.
Observed disk
Planetary silicate
(arbitrary units)
Interstellar silicate
Brightness
5 10 15
Wavelength (microns)
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. HURT Spitzer Science Center (opposite page); NASA/JPL-CALTECH/T. PYLE Spitzer Science Center (top);
Starlets
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/K. SU University of Arizona (bottom); MELISSA THOMAS (graphs)
A third type of nonsunlike star that might host
planets is the brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are
very different from white dwarfs, despite the
similar names. They are not stellar corpses but
stellar runts. They form in the same way stars
do, but their growth is stunted, leaving them
with less than about 8 percent the mass of the
sun—the threshold required for a stellar core to
become hot and dense enough to ignite sus-
tained nuclear fusion. The most they manage is
a feeble infrared glow as they radiate away the
heat they accumulated during their formation
(and perhaps a brief early period of fusion).
Over the past 15 years astronomical surveys
have found hundreds of brown dwarfs, and the
w w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m
WHITE DWARF + ACCRETION DISK
System name: G 29–38
System age: 600 million years
20 25 Star radius: 104 km
Disk radius: 0.001–0.01 AU
A second type of debris disk around a white dwarf shows up as a
red dot at the center of this infrared image of the Helix nebula.
This disk is probably the equivalent of the Kuiper belt of comets
in our own solar system. Such disks may exist around other
white dwarfs, too, but are undetectable because those dwarfs
are older and thus provide less illumination.
WHITE DWARF + DEBRIS DISK
System name: WD 2226–210 (Helix nebula)
System age: 10,000 years
Star radius: 104 km
Disk radius: 100 AU
least massive of them is scarcely heavier than a
giant planet.
Astronomers have found that these bodies,
even the smallest among them, can have disks
and therefore perhaps planets as well [see “The
Mystery of Brown Dwarf Origins,” by Subhan-
joy Mohanty and Ray Jayawardhana; Scientif-
ic American, January 2006]. The possibility of
planets is supported by observations showing
that brown dwarf disks undergo a series of sys-
tematic changes— including a drop in the promi-
nence of the infrared emission from silicates —
attributable to coagulation of the dust particles.
The same changes also occur in disks around
larger stars and signal the growth of planetary
building blocks. The brown dwarf disks are too
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 43
 [EXTREME PLANETS #3]

Brown Dwarf Systems

Many brown dwarfs have disks in which planets may be forming. take shape. The intimation that planets can arise in such an un-
The one around OTS 44 has enough material for a Uranus or Nep- promising setting as the environs of a brown dwarf, white dwarf
tune. This dwarf is about two million years old; when the sun was or neutron star suggests that planet formation is far more robust
the same age, the planets in our solar system were beginning to than astronomers used to think.

BROWN DWARF + DISK

System name: OTS 44
System age: 2 million years
Star radius: 105 km
Disk radius: 0.01–0.1 AU

➥ MORE TO
EXPLORE
First Fruits of the Spitzer Space
Telescope: Galactic and Solar Sys-
tem Studies. M. Werner, G. Fazio, G.
Rieke, T. L. Roellig and D. M. Watson
in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and
Astrophysics, Vol. 44, pages 269–321;
2006. Available at http://arxiv.org/
abs/astro-ph/0606563
Externally-Polluted White Dwarfs
with Dust Disks. M. Jura, J. Farihi
and B. Zuckerman in Astrophysical
meager for planets as large as Jupiter to form but
contain plenty of material for a Uranus or Nep-
tune. Some astronomers have claimed the dis-
covery of planets that formed around brown
dwarfs, but none of these claims is definitive.
In short, astronomers have found planets
around at least one neutron star; asteroids and
comets around more than a dozen white dwarfs;
and evidence for the early stages of planet forma-
tion around brown dwarfs. Ultimately, the study
of these and other extrasolar systems has two
goals: First, astronomers hope to learn more
about our own solar system, particularly about
its evolution and large-scale structure, features
The second goal is to determine how wide-
spread life might be in the universe. In our galac-
tic neighborhood, brown dwarfs are roughly as
numerous as stars. Might the nearest “star” to
our sun be a yet to be discovered brown dwarf?
Might the nearest planets to our solar system or-
bit a brown dwarf? The Wide-field Infrared Sur-
vey Explorer (WISE) satellite, which NASA plans
to launch at the end of the year, may well discov-
er several brown dwarfs closer than the nearest
known star. The formation of terrestrial planets
around brown dwarfs would not only extend the
range of potential habitats but also lead to the
intriguing possibility that the nearest extrater-
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/T. PYLE Spitzer Science Center

Journal, Vol. 663, No. 2, pages
1285–1290; July 10, 2007. Available
at http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1170
The Chemical Composition of an
Extrasolar Minor Planet. B. Zucker-
man, D. Koester, C. Melis, B. Hansen
and M. Jura in Astrophysical Journal,
Vol. 671, No. 1, pages 872–877; De-
cember 10, 2007. Available at http://
arxiv.org/abs/0708.0198
that are hard to discern from our limited tempo-
ral and spatial perspective. We also hope to place
our solar system in its context. Is it average or an
outlier? Despite the diversity of planetary sys-
tems, do they follow some common pathways in
their formation? The similarity between the
composition of asteroids in our solar system and
of the material that has fallen onto white dwarfs
suggests that the answer is yes.
restrial life may wake up in the morning to a
brown dwarf.
Similarly, the presence of asteroids and com-
ets around white dwarfs raises the possibility not
only that planets can survive the demise of a sun-
like star but also that life, if it could adapt to the
changing conditions, may hold out in the envi-
rons of these dead stars. Perhaps, then, white
dwarfs are not such a gloomy sight after all. ■

44 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN June 2009

 [UPDATE ON OTHER PLANET SEARCHES]

The Planetary Tease

Astronomers are on the verge of finding other Earths — but still far from knowing whether they are inhabited
By Donald Goldsmith

O n March 6 NASA’s Kepler space telescope embarked on a four-year

mission to discover Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. Like its
predecessor, the French-led COROT mission launched in December
Planet Finder (TPF) and the European Space Agency’s Darwin mission
could take spectroscopic measurements of planets’ surfaces and atmo-
spheres, but neither has yet proceeded beyond the design study phase.
2006, Kepler will monitor a selection of stars for temporary decreases Even if the agencies pool their resources, the mission could cost about
in brightness. One dip could mean anything, probably just a blip in the $2 billion and take nearly a decade to build. For now, the best hopes for
star’s energy output; a second dip would still signify relatively little; gleaning more information about planets are the James Webb Space
a third dip, occurring after the same time interval as that between the Telescope (JWST), scheduled for launch in 2013, and the next generation
first and second, would seem highly provocative; and a fourth dip after of ground-based telescopes [see “Giant Telescopes of the Future,” by
an identical interval would almost certainly mean that a planet is on Roberto Gilmozzi; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, May 2006]. Although they were
an orbit that carries it directly between the star and us. Every time the not specifically designed for planet analysis, these telescopes will be
planet passed, or transited, across the face of its star, it would block equipped with coronagraphic instruments designed to block starlight,
some of the starlight. A world roughly the size of ours diminishes its allowing researchers to see any small bodies hiding in the glare. These
star’s light by about one part in 10,000 [see “Searching for Shadows of instruments could produce images of young gas-giant planets, if they
Other Earths,” by Laurance R. Doyle, Hans-Jörg Deeg and Timothy M. exist, around some of the nearest stars. They might also be able to piece
Brown; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Septem-
ber 2000].
Earlier this year COROT found a
planet with about twice Earth’s
diameter, orbiting so close to its
parent star that each revolution
takes only 20 hours. Kepler, with a
mirror three and a half times wider
than COROT’s, should find dozens or
hundreds of Earths orbiting at more
comfortable distances from their
star. Most current searches, which
look for the slight gravitational tug
that a planet exerts on its parent
star, could not detect such compara-
tively small worlds. The trade-off is
that the planets’ orbits must be
aligned with our line of sight, and
the laws of probability suggest that
only about one in 100 will be so PLANET TOO SMALL to see directly can reveal itself when it
lucky. Nevertheless, Kepler will be passes in front of its star, dimming the star slightly.
able to create a statistically valid
sample of Earth’s galactic cousins.
But if this triumph occurs, astronomers will find themselves bereft of together spectroscopic information about tightly orbiting objects.
the information that they would most dearly like to obtain: What condi- The bottom line is that the next several years of the COROT and
tions exist on these planets? Are they suitable for life? When a gas-giant Kepler missions will be hugely exciting, and then we will enter a frustrat-
planet transits its star, astronomers can analyze its atmosphere by ing period of dreaming of what might yet be found. That is not unusual:
measuring the amount of dimming produced at different wavelengths. scientific understanding proceeds incrementally. Positive results may
But planets the size of Earth are far too small for this technique to work. inspire the funding and completion of new spaceborne observatories.
So the search strategy employed by COROT and Kepler can find Earths The search for planets in extreme settings such as the environs of neu-
but cannot tell us much about them. They cannot discern any of the tron stars, white dwarfs and brown dwarfs will show us how robust
signs of life, such as the distinctive colors of chlorophyll or its alien planet formation is [see main article]. But we need to prepare ourselves
equivalents [see “The Color of Plants on Other Worlds,” by Nancy Y. for a long struggle to discover our planet’s rightful place in the cosmos.
Kiang; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, April 2008]. Even the Space Interferometry
Mission (SIM), loosely planned for launch in 2015, will say little about Donald Goldsmith is author of the new book 400 Years of the Telescope
the Earths it discovers. (Interstellar Media Productions, 2009). He was science editor and
The instruments capable of assessing habitability lie still further in co-writer of the PBS television series The Astronomers and co-writer
the future, primarily because they are so expensive. NASA’s Terrestrial of NOVA’s “Is Anybody Out There?”
RON MILLER

w w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 45